The state’s economic activity declined at a 3.5 annualized rate in the last quarter of 2008, according to the MassBenchmarks Current Economic Index produced by the UMass Donahue Institute.
That was slightly slower than the national economy, which dropped 3.8 in the quarter.
The MassBenchmarks leading economic index for December, which forecasts growth over the next six months, stood at a negative 2.6.
Report author Alan Clayton-Matthews, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said the loss of more than 39,000 Massachusetts jobs in November and December has hurt both individual families and state revenues.
